A MERSEY health trust is being forced to pay out £500,000 to a dentist after he successfully sued for breach of contract.

David Tomkins took Knowsley Primary Care Trust (PCT) to the High Court after it refused to honour an agreement to pay him for treating around 1,500 extra patients.

The patients had transferred to Mr Tomkins’ Prescot House Dental Surgery after a nearby practice closed down. The PCT asked him to take them on and said it would pay him £100,000 a year to treat them. But it went back on that after losing another dispute with the dentist over how many patients the surgery treated in total.

A spokeswoman for the PCT said: “NHS Knowsley is satisfied it acted in good faith and will abide by the judgement of the court.”